Comments on: Good news(?): Moderate nut elected head of top Iranian council

By: BL@KBIRD

BL@KBIRD — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:13:29 +0000

I thought Khamenei called ALL the shots. He is just using smoke and mirrors and playing one off the others ego. Why pay attention to his puppets as if they were capable of introducing change from their individual viewpoints?

It’s the Ayatollah I told ya. ( Ramadan is almost upon us, how young is too young for thighing? Ask your Ayatollah. )

By: TheSitRep

TheSitRep — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:46:13 +0000

The metaphor “Stick & Carrot” comes from how to get a donkey to go forward.
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I hear it being used as “stick or carrot” where you would hit them with a stick or reward them with a carrot.
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But it means to use a long stick to suspend a carrot in front of the beast on which you are riding, thus motivating him to move forward.

By: Weebork

Weebork — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:58:05 +0000

I’ve done the math, and this new leader will not be a problem for us.

By: JiangxiDad

JiangxiDad — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:12:08 +0000

morganfrost on September 4, 2007 at 2:09 PM

seems easier to spell though.

By: morganfrost

morganfrost — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:09:51 +0000

Oh, hey, that is good news! I’d much rather that Rafsanjani nuke us than Ahmadinejad, wouldn’t you? Oh, yes, this is certainly a positive development.

By: doriangrey

doriangrey — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:04:26 +0000

Nothing but sleight of hand…

By: Big S

Big S — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:34:44 +0000

Remember, the President is still relevant here.

By: fogw

fogw — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:30:25 +0000

He’s known for being marginally less of a fanatic …

Like a Suicide Bomber with slightly longer fuse.

By: Henry Bowman

Henry Bowman — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:27:51 +0000

Rafsanjani, as some may recall, is the fellow who stated a few years ago that if a nuclear war erupted between Israel and Iran, and all the Jews were killed, but ‘only’ about 30 million Iranians, the Iranians would be the victors. The country of Iran would be history, of course, but that is not the aim of such folk: Islam would have won, as the Jews would be history.

By: PRCalDude

PRCalDude — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:22:50 +0000

Don’t fall for this, AP. Those mullahs are all the same, and they’re getting nukes either way.

By: Limerick

Limerick — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:20:31 +0000

Is this Assembly of Experts a lifelong position? Stick or carrot doesn’t matter as long as he is a thorn in Dinnerjacket’s side.

By: steveegg

steveegg — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:17:33 +0000

Either the regime is playing a stick-and-carrot game with the U.S. by moving Rafsanjani up the ladder to offset Ahmadinejad’s bellicosity and signal it may be open to some kind of diplomatic deal or there’s a legitimate power struggle between the “pragmatists” and the hardliners and someone at the top is getting nervous that the latter group has too much influence right now.

More like a box-and-carrot trap. Odds Foggy Bottom leads us right in – 5-3.

By: elBarto

elBarto — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:15:30 +0000

could be a sign of a “civil war” within the heirarchy.

By: aengus

aengus — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:15:09 +0000

Rafsanjani is believed to side with pro-democracy reformers

Not by me it isn’t. The mullahs play this game every few years, they shuffle between “moderates” and “conservatives”. Rafsanjani is as committed to the annihilation of Israel very bit as much as Ahmadinejad.

By: amerpundit

amerpundit — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:11:03 +0000

Stick-and-carrot.